For starters i was on my way home last night and noticed my volts where down extremely. Good new is i made it home, bad news is im suddenly stumped and out of ideas. Today i bought a brand new optima battery and powermat alternator... good way to spend $500 lol... and this still has not fixed my problem. My main power, sence, and trigger wire are all factory located. I did an ohm test on my main and sence wire from complete end to end and tested fine. Im wondering if something may be faulty with my trigger wire or my starter solenoid... fyi my alternator is pushing 10.45 volts. If its my starter solinoid ill find out tomorrow when i put the new one in since the *** end of my old one blew out on me when i went to start my car for a charg test today. Just keeps getting better and better for me.

 

So today i replaced the starter with a new one from the zone but still has not fixed the problem. Any ideas?

 

So today i replaced the starter with a new one from the zone but still has not fixed the problem. Any ideas?

 

Temporarily put 12 volts to the "trigger wire" and if your volts come up to round 13.5-14.5, there is something wrong with the trigger circuit.

 

I had the same problem once on a buick with a 307. I replaced about 3 alts, none of which fixed the problem, i ended up buying a 200 amp alt with a lifetime warranty. That didn't seem to do the trick either, still charged too low and would eventually drain the battery especially if i had the lights on. So my next step was to buy the biggest battery i could find. I think it was about 1200 cca. After a few days it too was dead. I then went trough the wiring and everything was fine there. Finally i called a mechanic i knew and explained the problem. He said bring the car over and he'd tell me what the problem was in under 5 minutes. He just said to bring him a 12 pack of beer. So figuring i had nothing to lose i drove the car over to him. I gave him the beer and he said open the hood. I popped it open and he put a voltage meter on the battery terminals then said rev the car a few times. "yup" he said after a second. Closed the hood and told me to go home and take my p/s belt off and clean the pulleys. Accoring to him my p/s belt was slipping and that was my problem.
I was kinda pissed because it really had nothing to do with my alt problem, and the belt wasn't making any squealing noise so i figured he was full of sh*t. But just to humor him i drove home and did what he said before i brought the car back over. He ended up being right. On that engine the p/s belt ran from the crank to water pump then around the p/s pump. It was coated with a layer of grease and oil making it slip very easily, and with no noise. My alt belt went from the alt, to the p/s pump double pulley, i dont remember where it went from there, but the p/s pump slipping made the alt run too slow. Cleaning the pulley fixed the problem that had been driving me crazy for weeks.
I'm not saying this is the case with your car, as the belt routing is totally different. BUT, ever since that happened to me i always check the belts and pulleys before i rule anything out. The simplest of things can cause the biggest problems sometimes and they are the things that are so often overlooked. I spent a few hundred bucks and alot of time and aggravation on something i could have fixed in 10 minutes to start with.

 

I put 12the volts to my trigger wire and still nothing. I took my guages out and all my connections are good too...

 

Well i fixed it! Even though the dvom was saying my main power wire comming off the back of my alternator was good i went against it and ran a new wire from the battery to the alternator and wha-la! Im tucking the new wire in the loom as we speak.